Who Wins the ACC?
- Thread starter dukedevilz
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Murphy is a plus athlete and a great shooter but he can't create his own shot at this stage. He's exceeded expectations in defending smaller guys, which we've needed given that this is the worst defensive team that we've had since 2013-14. But he can't go get buckets on his own and teams are now running him off the 3-point line. Lots of upside and he's a projected first rounder in 2022 on most mock drafts, but he needs to expand his offensive game.
As for Virginia and its postseason chances, they're not good in my opinion. Our guard play isn't where it needs to be, which is why we're a pretender and not a contender. Opposing teams are scheming Huff, Hauser, and Murphy better and forcing our guards to make plays and they can't do it consistently.
I mean, we'll still win games because with Bennett leading the way our floor will always be higher than anyone else in the league. But our ceiling this year isn't where we hoped given that our backcourt guys have not taken the step we hoped and we don't defend in the frontcourt the way we traditionally have.
I will say it wasn’t too many weekends ago I lost a boatload of cash betting on FSU and uva both on the road and both lost, FSU to GT and uva to vt maybe I can’t remember the specifics.
you’d think with no fans, home court wouldn’t mean as much, but it has. Look no further than our abysmal road record or Minnesota’s ridiculous home record.
The craziest part to all the missed games as far as we are concerned is I’m pretty sure we are gonna end up with wayyyyy more home conference games than away games, which is advantage obv, but I feel like the constant pauses are an even bigger disadvantage.
Im in no way trying to knock TB, bc he’s a great coach and by all accounts a great person, but he’s still the only coach to ever lose to a 16 seed, so I’m not sure I can be on board with the above statement, even with uva being the last team to cut down the nets.
That being said I know very little about uva bc we have yet to play this season, so I’m not gonna pretend to project their chances come March.
FSU has definitely struggled on the road. The Pitt away win was big. They’ve beaten us the last few years up there. Ham was more excited about that win than the UVA win. 3 of the last 4 games on the road. UNC the Big one.
As I say this, UVA and UNC both struggling some at home.🤷♂️ So FSU will probably struggle with undermanned Miami.
Virginia sucks again. That tank job at home against NC State should gift wrap the title for FSU.
I bet UNC is happy they scheduled this Marquette game to boost their resume. 😬
Really bad loss. Glad I was working and didn’t watch. I thought they’d probably have a letdown after playing so well last time out but didn’t think a loss was coming.
Probably the worst part is giving Wojo the satisfaction of winning at the Dean Dome.
Honestly, I can’t even say we’ve struggled on the road. We’ve only played 4 road games before tonight haha. And we won two of them. The Clemson game was so long ago it’s hard to even factor in. That was back when teams were still trying to just get some practice in.
Weird season.
Well I watched it and it was ugly. Had a feeling we would shit the bed with this one. The game with FSU isn't going to be good IMO.
WTH with UVA and UNC tonight? Gave credit to UNC for scheduling a game tonight. Wish they hadn’t now, sheesh. UVA...3 losses in a row? This year is nuts.
I think UVA just benefited with a schedule in conference that let them get out to a really good start. I do think teams have learned how to exploit them later in the season because of their relative weakness on defense compared to most years
I don't think you're getting what I mean when I say "high floor." Basically what I'm saying is that under Bennett we're never going to just absolutely suck. We'll be competitive and a tourney team probably every year. But there will be years, like this one, where the ceiling is low and we won't have the pieces to make a run.
As for this team, as I said earlier and as anyone who watched could see tonight, we don't have the interior defense or guard play to be a serious threat in the tournament.
Idk. We aren’t anywhere close to healthy. MJ Walker didn’t play tonight and Malik Osborne got hurt in the game and looked to be in a lot of pain.
Well so much for that, huh? Seems like FSU’s to lose now. Just hope we can get healthy.
@dukedevilz tonight was a good example of what I was saying about FSU’s defensive ranking on the advanced stats.
The Noles got up 49-28 at halftime and stretched it out to 69-46 midway through the second. The game was over. Knowing this, and also already seeing one key contributor get hurt, FSU played guys who wouldn’t ever see the court at other schools. In fact, 10 guys played at least 9 minutes, and MJ Walker didn’t even dress.
Now we gave up 71 points in 70 possessions, which doesn’t look good to Torvik and KenPom at all. But that’s meaningless to how our defense played. Miami couldn’t do anything when we had starters in.
There just aren’t a lot of teams that play 10+ guys as regularly as FSU does and the result is usually slightly worse metrics than we could have, but fresher legs come ACCT and NCAAT.
The Noles got up 49-28 at halftime and stretched it out to 69-46 midway through the second. The game was over. Knowing this, and also already seeing one key contributor get hurt, FSU played guys who wouldn’t ever see the court at other schools. In fact, 10 guys played at least 9 minutes, and MJ Walker didn’t even dress.
Now we gave up 71 points in 70 possessions, which doesn’t look good to Torvik and KenPom at all. But that’s meaningless to how our defense played. Miami couldn’t do anything when we had starters in.
There just aren’t a lot of teams that play 10+ guys as regularly as FSU does and the result is usually slightly worse metrics than we could have, but fresher legs come ACCT and NCAAT.
Good post. I'd much rather beat UM by "only" 17 than risk playing MJ Walker when he needs to heal up. I mean we saw Osbourne roll his ankle and he didn't return. FSU relies on depth, but if we get our guys all banged up -- there goes our depth and thus our advantage over many teams. These advanced metrics don't take into account that playing every game as if it's the last game of the year will hurt you in the long-run. No offense to KenPom but I don't want to be the team who ruled the regular season. I'd rather be the team who is standing last.
FSU has lead every game this year by double digits except for 1(@GT)
Obviously, it would be better if we had won all of those, but we lost 2 of them. We've been working with double digit leads for nearly 75% of the game play after the 10 minutes. It is hard for teams to maintain defensive focus when you're up that much.
unc beating the hell out of Louisville looks really bad on Louisville now. Also, Duke's loss to Louisville looks even worse. Duke's win vs Virginia doesn't look as impressive. But does that mean that their win vs NC State looks more impressive? So much fool's gold. Weird year.
Coach Ham said on Packer & Durham, FSU will be facing an angry UNC. He rather they had won by 25 last night and been happy.
You guys are very deep so I'll be surprised if we win. What's the report on Walker, why didn't he play last night?
Yea I gotcha, I thought u meant in the NCAAT, and losing in the ncaaT first round is the lowest floor possible, except not making it at all, which is what ur saying so yea that’s my bad.
Tendinitis is what I heard. He had an off night offensively at Pitt, so I think they just want him to get right for the post season. Someone posted that he should be good for Saturday, but I'm not sure what the legitimacy is of that.
I think as long as Gray maintains his recent production, as well as Barnes, we should do well, but you guys obviously have talent that can get things together for a game if it is motivated.
Nagging knee pain and/or tendinitis.
Yes we have depth, but that would be 3 guys down, two of whom are major contributors. There’s only so much depth a team has, even a deep team.
Haha crazy. Can't believe UVA lost to State at home. Embarrassing. Yes, you guys are absolutely in the drivers seat. Looks like you guys will be the outright regular season champions for the second year in a row. Very impressive.
Yup. And there are quite a few variables that KenPom can't account for, such as injuries and garbage time. So yes, we need to be a little cautious in how we evaluate teams. My intuition would lead me to believe that FSU had a top 25 defense, so I was surprised to see their ranking that low. But, I think you guys are fine. Honestly, I think a lot of people are going to be picking FSU for the Final Four. I might, just depends on who's in their region.
Au'diese Toney and Xavier Johnson have both entered the transfer portal in the past two days. There are some serious locker room issues with Pitt. Last year, I heard there was a 100% chance that XJ, McGowens, and Toney wouldn't all return. I think Toney and McGowens threw some punches at each other; I want to say XJ had issues too. Looks like things haven't exactly been cleaned up from a year ago. Sad because those three guys, combined with Champagnie, could easily be a tournament team if they were all working as a cohesive unit.
Yea total dumpster fire at Pitt. Someone is gonna get a helluva player in XJ and Toney really, although I personally think xj is better I guess it depends on what you need.
Also, who knows if John Hugley will ever play for Pitt again? He got suspended in January for felony charges, supposedly over a stolen vehicle.
I don’t remember him, but I’d have to guess no. GTA is pretty serious, not sure if u can dodge jail time or not but obv I have no clue on the circumstances surrounding his arrest.
I think Xavier Johnson could potentially play in the league someday. He's certainly athletic enough. If he could clean up his shooting and turnovers a bit, he might have a shot. In the right situation, he could easily be 1st Team or 2nd Team All-Conference for a power school. Toney will be a very valuable piece, too. HUGE losses for the program. Capel did a nice job at getting athletes to Pitt, but might need to spend more time evaluating the character of the recruits and seeing if they're the right fit for the program. He's going to have to re-build that program again. With significant losses like that, I'm not sure Champagnie will want to stick around for another year.
As a side note, I think it's crazy how XJ originally signed with Nebraska, later decommitted and signed with Pitt. Trey McGowens signed with Pitt, transferred to Nebraska and got his younger brother to decommit from FSU and join him at Nebraska. Don't think XJ and McGowens got along too well. Just think it's interesting how they both had stops with two of the same schools from opposite sides of the country.
Yea that’s pretty weird. Although we recently had a kid transfer to Nebraska then transfer back as a GT, although he wasn’t much help despite being like 25yo. Akoy Agua.
And I’m not sure if I’m the Pitt admin I even give Capel another shot. He’s been there for a few years already and this was supposed to be their best year with xj/Toney/champaigne. The fall they’ve taken since losing Dixon has been insane. They were always contenders under Dixon in the Beast.
And I wouldn’t come back if I was Champaign regardless. Gonna be hard to repeat his numbers next year with no xj and Toney. Plus not sure what else he has to prove, and the nba draft hates you more the older you get. But who knows, I haven’t seen if he’s even mocked to get drafted.
And I’m not sure if I’m the Pitt admin I even give Capel another shot. He’s been there for a few years already and this was supposed to be their best year with xj/Toney/champaigne. The fall they’ve taken since losing Dixon has been insane. They were always contenders under Dixon in the Beast.
And I wouldn’t come back if I was Champaign regardless. Gonna be hard to repeat his numbers next year with no xj and Toney. Plus not sure what else he has to prove, and the nba draft hates you more the older you get. But who knows, I haven’t seen if he’s even mocked to get drafted.
Man, losing Bryce McGowens realllllly hurt me earlier this year. I’d had a few opportunities to speak with him and his dad and they seemed all in on Hamilton, assistant coach Steve Smith (who’s THE guy in South Carolina with high schools—we hired him from Clemson), and FSU. Hell, Bryce was our first commit for 2021 way back in February of 2020.
And then his bro goes to Nebraska and Covid happens and apparently Bryce starts to get a little nervous of the other 5 stars we are signing and next thing you know he’s switching to Nebraska. Which...is just crazy given how likely he would be a one or two and done in our system.
Now, having said all that, our system only works when every single guy buys into the notion of only playing 20-25 minutes a game, even if you’re a five star. So it wouldn’t have been good for Bryce or FSU if he’s not bought in all the way. Just look at Von Wafer and Malik Beasley.
But man, that kid is a freaking stud. Long, bouncy, can score at all three levels, good hoops IQ, and solid playmaker. He’s WAY better than Trey.
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